


We Are the Broken

by NelindeA



Series: Fragments [1]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Except I had the title idea in my head already, Fluff I guess, Gen, I literally woke up at 2, References to Depression, References to anxiety, This tag thing is fun I should do it more often, Wrote this in 45 minutes, don't know where it came from, went back to bed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-13
Updated: 2018-12-13
Packaged: 2019-09-17 11:39:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16973919
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/NelindeA/pseuds/NelindeA
Summary: Phil has a headache. Dan's brain won't shut up.





	We Are the Broken

I lay on top of my green-and-blue-checkered bed, one arm flung across my forehead, though I wasn’t sure what that was accomplishing, because it sure wasn’t helping the clamping pain in my cranium. This had to be, what, the third hour of this? I couldn’t really tell. All sense of time kind of flew out the window every time I got a migraine. Especially when I was also suffering from half-dreams that I still had a headache then, but that wasn’t true this evening. 

No, tonight I hadn’t even officially gone to bed yet. As I said, I was lying on top of my bed, as in, not under the covers. I hadn’t even changed out of my clothes, because when I’d assumed this position it had still only been around 10:30, and I hadn’t expected the headache to be around for much longer. But I’d turned the lights off, since they were hurting my eyes, and now that it was probably almost 2:00 it made much more sense to just climb under my duvet and call it a night. 

But what would that accomplish? I’d been lying here for three hours and sleep hadn’t come, and I was afraid that if I moved it would disrupt any progress I’d made so far. Besides, I was aware from experience that moving my head even a tiny bit would send millions of needles coursing through it, and I wasn’t willing to endure that yet. Even moving my arm might cause that reaction, which is why it was still draped across my face, though it had gone numb and I knew I was going to have to reposition it soon anyway.

It was kind of stressing me out that this headache wasn’t allowing me to sleep. There aren’t many nights where I know I have to be somewhere early in the morning, but this was one of them, and I wasn’t looking forward to being a zombie for the entire day just because my stupid brain was too needy to let me rest. It was so frustrating. I was tired, too, I was so ready to go to sleep, and I just wanted this pain to be gone. I considered texting Dan and asking him to bring me some ibuprofen, but this day had been kind of a hard one for him, mentally speaking, and he’d gone to bed even earlier than I had, so I wasn’t too keen on bothering him. And oh, that’s right, I’d already taken some. Three hours ago. It was difficult to remember when it had made absolutely no impact. 

I felt tears pricking my eyes, which was even more annoying. I don’t cry all that much, and I knew that the tears were only present now because I was in so much pain, and unable to sleep. They didn’t even fall, they just kinda showed up as if to make absolutely sure that I wasn’t feeling better. Because of course the stinging sensation of tearing up when you haven’t for a while doesn’t make a headache worse or anything. Ugh.

I began to wonder if this headache would go away by the morning, or if I’d have that as well as being a sleep-deprived zombie when I had to leave. That thought was stressing me out even more. Tomorrow was a busy day, and there were important meetings going on, and I couldn’t just cancel on them, and if I was a wreck the whole time then I might as well not even be there!

My anxiety was starting to wind up inside me; I could feel it getting tighter and tighter like a corkscrew, on top of everything else. What if I did have to cancel? Could I dump everything on Dan? That wouldn’t be fair to him! When would be the next time we could reschedule? Not for a couple of weeks, at least. What if—

My unsteady tower of thoughts came tumbling down with a crash as the bedroom door was suddenly opened. I winced slightly at the glimmer of light that had poured in, but before I could speak the door was immediately closed again and a figure strode purposefully towards my bed. He dove under the covers, pulling them up over his head, and lay hunched up in a ball, trembling like a leaf. 

I instantly sat up. I knew what this was. It had happened before, but I didn’t know today had been that bad. 

“Hey,” I said softly. “Hey, Dan, it’s okay, it’s all right.” I gently nudged the lump, and was greeted with a grunt of protest. 

“Dan, come on out. Tell me what’s wrong.”

A sigh came from under the duvet. “Nothing. Just got too noisy in my head.”

“That’s not nothing,” I informed him. “But all you have to do is tell it to shut up at this godforsaken hour.”

I was rewarded with a quiet chuckle, and then Dan rolled over, and took the duvet off his head so I could see his face. “It’s just karma, Phil. It’s because I’m always so loud when we film gaming videos that the neighbors have no hope of peace and quiet.” 

“Well, hopefully your head was saying more civil things, at least,” I said.

He pressed his palms into his eyes. “Not really. It was a lot of self-doubt and stuff, you know, the usual. Pretty rude, tbh.”

“Yeah, I’d say so,” I agreed.

He slid his hands down his face and sighed again. “I’m sorry. I know you have a headache.”

“How?” I asked, not so surprised that he knew as I was to find that I’d forgotten about the headache once he’d come in, and the pain had dramatically subsided by now. 

He glanced at my hoodie and skinny jeans. “’Cause you’re still wearing those.”

“You didn’t know that before you came in.”

“No, but I still knew.” 

He offered no other explanation, but I felt an increase in warmth in my heart towards him. And suddenly I realized the real reason I hadn’t gone to bed yet. I’d been waiting for him. Some part of me knew he was going to come to me, as I’d known he’d had a bad day even though he hadn’t said anything, because that’s just how well we know each other. We may be broken at times, but we can always count on the other one to make us whole again. 

And with that thought, the rest of my pain and anxiety melted away. I glanced at his face to see a tiny smile, and I was sure, at least I was quite, quite optimistic, that his had too.


End file.
